Pre-Employment Hair Drug Testing

May 11th, 2011

Trucking company, C.R. England, recently published the results of a year long study of the difference between using a urine drug test versus a hair drug test as part of the pre-employment drug screen. The DOT requires trucking companies to use a urine drug test and the company will continue to do so, however, the results of additionally using a hair drug test are substantially different.

“With hair testing, we are able to detect months of time rather than the handful of days checked with standard urine tests. We found our hair testing positive rate was over three times higher than the required DOT urine test alone.” Dustin England, vp-safety and compliance for C.R. England

The pilot study was done with 2,000 job applicants that were given the urine drug test and the hair drug test. Over 150 applicants tested positive to the hair drug test while testing negative on the urine drug test. Overall, 11% of the applicants tested positive to the hair drug test versus only 2.8% testing positive to the DOT required urine drug test.

For employers looking for long term employees, the results of this study show that hair drug testing as part of the job hiring process will help reduce the risk of hiring a person with a drug habit. Urine drug tests only show drug use in the last few days or weeks compared to a hair drug test which has a ninety day or more history of drug use.

C.R. England is a national trucking company that must comply with DOT regulations regarding drug tests, however, small businesses can also use hair drug tests as part of the pre-employment process and it is no longer cost prohibitive to do so. Our hair drug test kit for business is less than $80 and there is no minimum purchase so you can test just one potential employee before making that final hiring decision.